COBIT Governance Guide

Free guide to effective IT Governance available to members of the IT Governance Institute

To help service managers use COBIT and ITIL to effectively govern IT services, the IT Governance Institute (ITGI) has released a new publication, titled COBIT User Guide for Service Managers.

The guide, supported by itSMF, helps service managers better understand the need for IT governance and how to apply good practices in their specific roles and responsibilities. It facilitates easier use and adoption of Control Objectives for Information and related Technology (COBIT) and IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) concepts and approaches, and encourages integration of COBIT with ITIL.

"When used together, COBIT and ITIL provide a top-to-bottom approach to IT governance, including service management," said Robert Stroud, CGEIT, international vice president of ITGI and chair of the COBIT Steering Committee. "When used together, the power of both approaches is amplified, resulting in greater likelihood of management support and more cost-effective use of resources."

COBIT User Guide for Service Managers is applicable to any service provider, whether acting as an internal IT function or as a commercial vendor. The guidance is based on good practice and the practical experiences of industry experts, and is intended to be pragmatic and helpful rather than prescriptive. The structure has been based on COBIT's key components of key controls, goals and metrics, roles and responsibility (RACI) charts, and maturity models. It also leverages ITGI's COBIT mapping research, including the latest mapping of COBIT 4.1 with ITIL V3 and the soon-to-be-released mapping of COBIT 4.1 with ISO/IEC 20000.

Included are explanations on how to get started and combine COBIT and ITIL for a successful service management. Core guidance is provided in the form of a table showing:

* The key activities of a service manager organized by ITIL V3 processes
* The corresponding COBIT 4.1 control objectives
* The corresponding ISO/IEC 20000-1:2005 references
* Roles and responsibilities for a generic range of role players expressed as a RACI chart

COBIT User Guide for Service Managers is available as a complimentary download for ISACA members. The electronic version is US $35 for nonmembers. Print copies can be purchased for US $50 from the ISACA Bookstore.